Florida: Weird Stuff Just Happens Here
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) - It's not just you, things are definitely different when it comes to the Sunshine State.
"You can't trust anything you see or hear in Florida and that makes people a little crazy," said author Craig Pittman.
Forget about the state's abundant sunshine, beaches, alligators or theme parks, what really sets it apart from the rest of the country is its weirdness.
"I always say weird things happen wherever there are humans, but more weird things happen in Florida and they tend to be weirder," said Pittman.
Pittman just wrote a new book "Oh Florida, How America's Weirdest State Influences The Rest Of The Country." Whether its 'stand your ground', the hanging chads of the 2000 election or a man eating another man's face, Florida has some strange happenings. Pittman chalks part of it up to the state's rapidly growing population.
"We have 20 million people, we are the third most populous state and then you layer on the 100 million or so visitors we get every year," said Pittman. "When you get that many people from so many different places its inevitable, you have people running into each other's cars, chasing each other with machetes and ending up in the police logs for various reasons."
As we head into this year's elections, Pittman said he expects the state's voters to do weird things.
"There's lots of new voters who don't know the issues and they tend to judge based on TV commercials, that's how we ended up voting for Barack Obama twice and Rick Scott twice. The only way to explain that is we had a different set of voters each time," said Pittman.
Pittman said with 29 electoral votes, the 'weirdest state in the union' could once again play a big role in deciding this year's presidential race.
